conversion

Ever wondered how many calories are in a burrito? How about grams of fat in a donut? Or, carbs in a potato?

All of these food and nutrition stats, and more, can now be found on Google Search. The Web giant announced Thursday that it was introducing detailed nutrition information for more than 1,000 fruits, vegetables, meats, and meals in both its desktop and mobile search.

"From the basics of potatoes and carrots to more complex dishes like burritos and chow mein, you can simply ask, 'How much protein is in a banana?' or 'How many calories are … Read more

Google is enabling a more naturally spoken question-and-answer interface to its search service for people with a new version of Chrome.

Google demonstrated conversational search at Google I/O a week ago, a style of search designed to be more like natural human speech than the technically constructed search queries that people often use today to retrieve information from a search engine.

It's all part of the gradual arrival of Google's vision to build a Star Trek-style search engine, in which the computer grasps what people want and answers them. Eventually, expect Google to let people initiate a … Read more

The number of video conversion programs available makes choosing a good one difficult. Though it's basically functional, the lack of features and problematic setup make VidConvert for Mac a less desirable option.

VidConvert is available as a free trial version with a three-minute conversion time limit; the full, unrestricted program requires payment of $7.99. The program installs quickly. Unfortunately, after initiating the program, the user must complete an additional download from a separate site before conversion can take place. This second download requires Terminal operations, which is a lot to ask of all but the most experienced Mac … Read more

Walmart will soon be able to convert your DVD movies to online digital content right from your own PC.

The company's Disc-to-Digital service already handles that type of conversion. But the current process requires you to hop over to your local Walmart store to get your DVD converted.

Starting sometime this month, the expanded service will handle the whole conversion with you driving it from your PC. Using its Vudu video streaming service, Walmart will convert your DVD and Blu-ray movies and TV shows into UltraViolet digital copies. Those copies are then stored in your own online libraries where … Read more

Have you missed the weekly Crave podcast? We sure have. We are, therefore, very happy to tell you it's making a comeback with CNET producer Stephen Beacham! Catch the madness and mayhem below.

- Feeling jumpy? Bounce down a trampoline sidewalk

- Trotify puts Monty Python horse coconuts on your bike

- Chuck Taylors collide in nerdy shoe collection

- Geek out over Legend of Zelda playing cards

- DOE, NASA testing fission reactor for spaceflight

- Interchangeable clothing uses magnets to switch up the style

- $2.4 million air-conditioned limo submarine perfect for 007 … Read more

There are any number of utilities out there that can quickly and easily convert a variety of file formats into PDFs, so there's no reason to settle for one that doesn't quite meet your needs. DeskPDF Pro combines an efficient drag-and-drop interface with some useful features, but the limitations of the trial version are significant, and there are free programs with many of the same features.

Once installed, DeskPDF Pro appears as an icon in the Windows system tray; clicking it brings up a small interface onto which users can drag files for conversion. This launches a window … Read more

Do you have a workplace or have to communicate with one that is still using an older format of Microsoft Office from 1997-2003? Well, if you spend a lot of time writing, sharing, or collaborating on documents through Google Docs, you're probably aware that Google has discontinued support for these older formats.

You could try to encourage your workplace to upgrade its software, but that's probably not the most realistic or speedy option. Thankfully, there are a few options for dealing with this formatting change.

Save your documents in any format and use an online converter. … Read more

Flv Crunch is one of many free tools available for converting various video and audio files to multiple formats. The application has a pretty standard user interface, giving you access to the basic conversion operations without any customization options, but you won't really miss them, as Flv Crunch does a very good job in a short time frame.

If you are a novice user, you may want to access the built-in Help file, but intermediate and advanced level users will intuitively know where to click and what action to take in order to improve the video conversion. What we … Read more

When you're faced with an unfamiliar file format and just want to hear that track, watch that vid, or read that e-book now, you may have your work cut out for you. There are plenty of file converters out there, but they require download, installation, updates, and an understanding of how they work. Online Convert aims to clear away all those requirements and make it easy to shift files from one type to another. Here's how to use it: